In speaking with The Athletic this week, Amanda Staveley, general manager of Newcastle United, confirmed that the Premier League club had indeed tried to sign both 19-year-old Reims’ striker Hugo Ekitike and Lille centre-back Sven Botman in January:
“We examined all players available in Europe, America, everywhere. There were a few young players we wanted to bring in like Ekitike, but he wouldn’t have been a player for today, he would have been an investment for the future.”
“We had to encourage players – ‘we’ll be a safe place for you, we’ll deliver and grow’. Some desperately wanted to come to us, like Sven Botman, who still does very much and has talked very openly about that.”
